_Dom Chukina_ 223 _Krestovia in the Romanof House_ 229 _Varvarka Vorot of the Kitai Gorod_ 238 _A Chastok (Watch Tower)_ 245 _Petrovski Monastery_ 250 _Simonov Monastery_ 261 _Novo Devichi Convent_ 267 _Spasski Vorot, Tower over the Redeemer Gate_ 279 _Borovitski Gate and St Saviour's Cathedral_ 299 _Plan of the Kremlin_ _face_ 125 _Map of Moscow_ " 308 MOSCOW CHAPTER I _Introduction--Pre-Muscovite Russia_ "Cimmerii a Scythis nomadibus ejecti."--HERODOTUS. The mediæval pilgrim to Moscow, getting his first glimpse of the Holy City from Salutation Hill, saw before him much the same sight as the tourist of to-day may look upon from the same spot. Three miles away a hill crowned with white-walled buildings, many towers, gilded domes and spires topped with Cross-and-Crescent; outside the wall that encircles this hill, groups of buildings, large and small; open fields, trees--singly, in rows, clumps and thickets--separate group from group; ever and anon above the many hued roofs reach belfries, spires, steeples, domes and minarets innumerable. Beyond, to right and left, the scene repeats itself until the bright coloured buildings become indistinguishable from the masses of verdure and all merge in the haze of the plains east and west, or the faint outline of forest to the north. Long ago the tremendous extent of this town, apparently without limit, amazed strangers no less than the richness and multitude of its buildings filled pilgrims with awe and reverence. To the tourist to-day it is as a vision of magnificent splendour and brilliance, for seen in the clear sunlight of a summer day Moscow has beauty and brightness no other city possesses. Long lines of ivory whiteness capped with vivid green or flushed with carmine and ruby; great globes of deepest blue, patches of purple and dashes of aquamarine; many gleaming domes of gold, glowing halos of burnished copper, dazzling points of glistening silver--such make Moscow at sunset like part of a rainbow streaked with lightning and thickly bedizened with great gems.